Charles River Labs has struck a deal with CDMO Wheeler Bio to integrate Wheeler’s portable chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) platform into its antibody development process for biotech clients, the companies announced Feb. 21 in a press release.
The partnership will give early-stage biotechs that engage CRL for CRO services a streamlined system to take antibody drugs from preclinical studies to clinical trials. Wheeler’s platform is an open-source technology stack with modules for each step of the CMC process. It can be tailored to a drug development program’s milestones, budget and fundraising timelines, according to Wheeler’s website.
“Wheeler is excited to expand our relationship with Charles River and to link with their discovery organization,” Jesse McCool, CEO and co-founder of Wheeler Bio, said in the release. “Our combined sales teams look forward to co-promoting these services for the benefit of our biotech partners and their pipelines toward clinical impact.”
The development “will significantly boost” Charles River's discovery and safety assessment segment, according to an analysis from Zacks Equity Research. This is the second partnership between the two companies in the past year. In May 2023, Wheeler announced it would implement CRL’s RightSource biologics testing lab for quality control at its cGMP biologics manufacturing facility.
Terms of the new deal were not disclosed.